THE 


lopl  Element  of  Jforth  Carolina 


DURIKG  THE  r WAR. 


OMAHA  EBBtTBLICAS  FEIST. 


THE 


LOYAL  ELEMENT  OF  NORTH  CAROLINA 

DURING    THE    WAR. 

A    PAPER 
Read    before   trie    Nebraska    Commandery 

OF  TIIK 

MILITARY    ORDER 

OF  THE 

LOYAL  LEGION  <SH*  UNITED  STATES 

By  Companion  JAMES  W.  SAVAGE, 

Late  Colonel  12th  N.  Y.  Cavalry. 


OMAHA,     NEB. 
1886. 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 
in  2013 


http://archive.org/details/loyalelementofnoOOsava 


chiton 
S2t 


The  Loyal  Element  of  North  Carolina 

DURING   THE   WAR. 


Companions:  Remembering  the  apparent  unanimity  with 
which  the  people  of  the  south  sustained  the  secession  move- 
ment after  hostilities  had  actually  begun,  we  are  apt  to  forget 
how  devout  was  the  love  for  the  union  in  some  sections  of  the 
confederacy.  Nowhere,  not  even  in  Eastern  Tennessee,  was 
this  sentiment  stronger  than  in  portions  of  the  state  of  North 
Carolina. 

On  the  seventeenth  of  January,  1861,  I  was  passing  through 

the   last   named  state   on    my  way  to    Milledgeville,  Georgia. 

The    southern   heart  was    fast   catching    fire,    and    there   were 

plenty  of  hot   heads    to    apply  the    kindling    torch  in    North 

Carolina.       Georgia  had   just  passed  her  secession   ordinance, 

and  the  half  grown,  tar-heel  boys  were  shouting  for  the  side 

which  promised  relief  from  the  dreary  monotony  of  their  lives. 

At  every  cross  roads,  and  at  every  railway  station    you  were 

pretty  sure   to  see  two  or  three  young  men  with  the  blue  and 

■white  cockade  (at    that    early  day  the  emblem  of  treason)  in 

their  hats.     Most  of  the  old  men  on  the  train  looked  grave  and 

troubled,  but  kept   quiet.      Ex-Governor    Moorhead,  however, 

a  frank,  plain-spoken   old    patriot,  who    had    not   long   before 

quitted  the  gubernatorial  chair  of  North  Carolina,  left  no  one 

in    doubt   as    to    what   his    sentiments    were.     He    denounced 

secession    as  a  crime    and  secessionists  as    fools,  in    language 

which  was  not  to  be    mistaken.      At    one    station    where    the 

to  shouting    was    unusually  loud,  and  the  symbols  of  disloyalty 

Of 

fe. 


quite  numerous,  the  old  governor  could  keep  his  patience  no 
longer;  and  going  out  to  the  rear  platform  of  the  car,  he  ad- 
vised the  shouters  in  terse,  nervous  and  forcible  Anglo-Saxon 
words,  by  no  means  above  the  comprehension  of  the  crowd, 
to  take  the  rebel  cockades  from  their  hats,  and  replace  them  on 
more  ignoble,  even  if  quite  as  conspicuous,  portions  of  their 
bodies. 

But  persuasion,  sarcasm  and  sneers  were  alike  unavailing 
against  the  tide.  North  Carolina  was  literally  forced  out  of 
the  union  four  months  later,  by  a  convention  possessing 
neither  the  legal  authority  nor  moral  right  to  pass  such  an 
ordinance;  and  as  the  conflagration  spread,  such  men  as  the  ex- 
governor  soon  found  themselves  in  a  hopeless  minority. 

As  for  himself  he  did  not  long  survive  to  witness  miseries 
which  he  could  not  alleviate  or  crimes  which  he  had  striven  in 
vain  to  prevent.  But  there  were  many  sharers  of  his  senti- 
ments who  survived  the  war,  and  who  could  truthfully  say  at 
its  close,  "  We  have  kept  the  faith."  The  western  part  of  the 
state,  bordering  on  Tennessee,  was  to  the  full  as  loyal  as  West 
Virginia.  Captain  Hock,  of  the  Twelfth  New  York  Cavalry, 
who  was  captured  at  Plymouth  in  April,  1864,  after  enduring 
some  months  of  confinement  at  the  camp  in  Salisbury,  made 
his  escape,  started  westward  and  reached,  after  toilsome  wan- 
dering and  perilous  adventures,  a  force  of  union  troops  in 
East  Tennessee.  He  found  in  North  Carolina  an  underground 
railway,  as  systematic  and  as  well  arranged  as  that  which  ex- 
isted in  Ohio  before  the  war.  Its  objects  were  two-fold:  first, 
to  protect  or  secrete  loyal  North  Carolinians  who  wished  to 
avoid  the  rigid  conscription  of  the  south  ;  and,  second,  to  aid 
in  the  escape  of  such  Yankee  prisoners  as  might  choose  that 
precarious  route  to  freedom.  From  the  time  that  Captain 
Hock,  by  accident,  happened  upon  one  of  the  stations  of  this 
road,  his  sufferings  and  troubles  were,  in  large  measure,  over. 


He  found  food  and  resting  places,  stations  in  secure  srjots, 
guides  over  intricate  mountain  paths  and  a  hostility  to  rebel- 
lion which  the  north,  bitter  as  it  was,  hardly  knew.  Some- 
times he  would  spend  the  night  at  the  house  of  a  prosperous 
farmer,  sometimes  in  a  cave  with  two  or  three  young  fellows 
who  were  seeking  to  baffle  conscripting  parties,  and  sometimes 
alone  in  the  forest.  But  wherever  he  was,  he  was  sure  to  find 
either  explicit  and  unmistakable  directions  for  the  next  stage, 
or  a  conductor,  alert,  active  and  cautious,  who  accompanied 
him  over  the  more  dangerous  part  of  his  way.  Nor  was  this 
help  withdrawn  until  from  a  mountain  peak  near  the  Ten- 
nessee border  he  was  shown  the  federal  flag  floating  over  an 
outpost  of  our  army.  Without  the  aid  and  comfort  thus 
afforded,  it  would  have  been  impossible  for  the  captain,  lame 
and  sore  from  travel,  and  weak  from  starvation,  to  attain  his 
liberty,  and  he  must  either  have  perished  on  the  inhospitable 
hills  or  been  returned  to  hopeless  captivity. 

But  fidelity  to  the  union  was  not  confined  to  the  western 
or  mountainous  portion  of  the  state.  There  were  few  counties 
of  the  interior  where  the  old  traditional  love  for  the  country, 
handed  down  from  Guildford  and  other  battle  fields  of  the 
Revolution,  did  not  assert  itself.  At  Spring  Hill,  not  far  from 
Goldsboro,  there  was  a  community  of  loyal  citizens  so  large 
that  it  might  be  said  to  embrace  the  entire  village.  The  fate 
of  their  brethren  at  Kinston,  of  which  I  shall  presently  speak, 
had  kept  them  quiet  while  they  were  under  the  malevolent  eyes 
of  confederate  leaders;  but  they  were  well  known  to  be  disaffect- 
ed to  what  was  called  the  cause  of  liberty,  and  as  soon  as  the 
regiment  to  which  I  belonged  marched  into  the  place,  and  they 
realized  that  speech  was  once  more  free,  their  unaffected  joy  at 
our  coming,  and  their  undisguised  terror  when  there  was  a 
rumor  that  we  were  to  be  ordered  away,  were  clear  proofs  that 
their   loyalty  to  the    union    was  no  pretense.     Leaving  out  a 


6 

strip  of  varying  but  of  no  great  width  along  the  coast, 
and  also  the  counties  bordering  South  Carolina,  and  I  doubt  if 
one  could  go  ten  miles  in  any  direction  without  finding  some 
family,  either  openly  or  secretly,  but  at  all  events  heartily  de- 
voted to  the  north.  Certainly  it  was  so  in  every  portion  of 
the  state  to  which  my  personal  observation  extended.  On  long 
scouting  expeditions,  on  raids  to  cut  a  railroad  or  destroy  a 
bridge,  the  places  where  it  was  safe  to  rely  on  what  you  heard 
were  as  well  ascertained  as  the  light-houses  along  our  coast. 
There  was  of  course,  much  fear  among  them,  and  they  were 
excessively  cautious,  for  no  reign  of  terror  was  ever  so  despotic 
as  that  in  the  south  during  the  war;  but  whenever  they  were 
assured  of  safety,  they  were  very  free  and  outspoken.  A  planter 
near  Mosely  Hall  was,  in  my  opinion,  as  true  and  honest  a 
patriot— I  speak  with  all  due  reverence — as  Lincoln  himself. 
Nor  did  he  falter  in  his  allegiance  when  the  locusts  of  Sher- 
mans army  afterwards  swarmed  over  his  place  and  left  him 
with  literally  nothing  but  the  four  walls  and  roof  of  his  house. 
He  visited  me  a  few  days  after  their  interview  with  him, 
cheerful  and  happy  in  the  prospect  of  a  speedy  victory  for  the 
union  arms,  careless  of  his  own  personal  losses,  and.  refusing  to 
accept  anything  from  me  except  some  trifling  commissary 
stores,  and  a  horn  comb  which  he  thought  would  please  his 
wife,  who  hadn't  been  able  to  comb  her  head  for  a  week. 

The  line  and  non-commissioned  officers  made  many  acquaint- 
ances which,  if  not  in  the  most  refined  circles,  served  to  make 
scouting  parties  successful,  and  at  all  events,  to  while  away  the 
tedium  of  many  a  long  march.  I  recall  the  dawn  of  a  sum- 
mer morning  after  an  all  night's  journey.  Just  as  it  became 
light  enough  to  distinguish  faces,  the  head  of  the  column, 
marching  by  twos,  approached  a  log  hut  by  the  wayside.  A 
young  girl  of  fifteen,  of  that  exquisite  type  of  beauty  only  seen 
at  the  south,  which  seems  angelic  while  it  lasts,  but  is  so  fleet- 


ing  that  it  fades  utterly  away  before  the  coming  of  womanhood, 
rushed  hurriedly  down  to  the  roadside  with  her  hair  flying,  and 
her  bare  brown  feet  and  ankles  twinkling  in  the  grass.  Scanning, 
evidently  with  a  fixed  purpose,  the  face  of  every  soldier  that 
rode  by,  her  pretty,  fascinating  features  lighted  up  as  she 
caught  sight  of  an  officer  who  a  few  weeks  before  had  been 
sent  on  a  reconnoitering  expedition  over  that  very  road.  "  Oh, 
Lieutenant!"  she  cried,  in  a  voice  which  was  audible  far  down 
the  line,  "  Oh,  Lieutenant!  where's  my  fine  toothed  comb? 
Where's  my  bladder  of  snuff  ?"  The  story  of  woman's  weak- 
ness and  man's  perfidy  could  hardly  be  told  in  fewer  or  more 
eloquent  words.  The  laugh  of  the  men,  heard  at  intervals 
from  the  rear  as  the  story  was  repeated,  indicated  that  the 
gallant  lieutenant  had  not  heard  the  last  of  the  appeal. 

It  was  asserted  that  with  a  bladder  of  snuff,  after  that  deli- 
cacy became  scarce,  a  Yankee  could  travel  throughout  the 
entire  state,  and  meet  everywhere  only  good  treatment  and 
unbounded  hospitality.  But  this  fact,  perhaps,  is  hardly  to  be 
relied  upon  as  an  evidence  of  loyalty;  for  the  loss  of  their 
favorite  stimulant  was  a  sad  deprivation  to  the  women  of  the 
South,  to  whatever  flag  they  were  devoted. 

Most  of  the  loyalists  of  North  Carolina  would  have  been 
contented  after  the  breaking  out  of  hostilities  to  remain  quiet 
on  their  plantations  or  patches  and  take  active  service  in 
neither  army.  But  the  time  soon  came  when  they  were 
obliged  to  choose  their  colors.  Conscripting  officers  enrolled 
every  able  bodied  man  in  the  confederacy;  and  in  antici|)ation 
of  a  speedy  muster-in  and  enforced  service  in  the  rebel  army, 
numbers  made  their  way  into  our  lines  as  soon  as  the  success 
of  the  Burnside  expedition  had  established  a  foothold  at 
New  Bern,  and  offered  themselves  to  the  federal  army.  A 
regiment  of  these  men  was  formed,  to  which  was  given  the 
name    of  the  First  North  Carolina  Union  Volunteers.     They 


/ 


were  mainly  employed  in  manning  the  fortifications;  for 
it  was  well  understood  that  if  captured,  these  conscripts,  rebels 
against  a  rebellion,  could  expect  no  quarter.  The  melancholy 
fate  of  a  detachment  of  these  men  forms  one  of  the  darkest 
pages  in  the  history  of  the  war. 

About  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  of  the  first  of  February, 
1864,  a  furious  assault  was  made  upon  the  union  outposts 
near  New  Bern,  which,  although  stoutly  resisted,  resulted  in 
the  withdrawal  of  all  our  forces  behind  the  fortifications  of  that 
city.  Unhappily,  in  the  suddenness  of  the  rebel  advance,  a 
masked  battery  hidden  in  the  forest,  so  constructed  as  to 
command  the  Neuse  river,  and  occupied  by  about  forty  of  these 
North  Carolinians  was  cut  off  and  completely  isolated  from  our 
troops;  though  from  its  situation  it  remained  for  a  long  time 
undiscovered.  Attempts  were  made  during  the  night  to  com- 
municate with  these  men.  A  brave  young  officer,  who  did  not 
survive  the  war,  volunteered  to  carry  an  order  to  them,  and 
actually  made  his  way  through  the  rebel  forces  during  the 
night,  but  owing  to  the  darkness  and  rain,  lost  his  way  in  the 
swamp  and  was  obliged  to  return.  The  liveliest  sympathy  was 
felt  for  these  beleaguered  patriots,  and  as  the  siege  of  New 
Bern  was  soon  abandoned,  it  was  hoped  that  either  the 
enemy  had  failed  to  discover  the  work,  or  that  the  commanding 
officer  had  instructed  his  men  to  disperse,  and  seek  each  to  save 
himself  as  he  might.  But  the  post  when  visited  by  us  was 
silent  and  tenantless,  and  it  was  not  until  weeks  afterwards  that 
we  learned  that  their  commander  from  a  mistaken  sense  of 
duty,  had  resisted  all  their  entreaties  to  allow  them  to  save 
themselves  by  individual  flight,  that  they  had  been  captured, 
and  after  a  hurried  military  trial,  every  one  hanged  at  Kinston. 
Some  months  later,  I  was  shown  the  grove  in  which  they  were 
executed.  The  trees  of  North  Carolina  never  bore  nobler  or 
more  spotless  fruit. 


